The public discourse around the NHS would lead you to think that NHS spending had been squeezed over the last 14 years - but it hasn’t.
NHS budget has actually consistently grown faster than inflation under a decade and a half of Tory health secretaries.
It has been squeezed though.
Under labour the NHS consistently received funding around 4% above inflation, under the Tories it was barely clearing 1% most years Fig 1
There’s also the other side of it, the NHS was not exempt from the 1% pay cap.
Should always go up above inflation to retain and attract staff as well as morally to improve people’s standards of living (and economically to grow tax receipts and grow the economy)
The two things together it becomes clear how the crisis started. Now add to that Brexit and a large reduction of the labour pool, other countries attracting staff with generous packages.
Yes, my point was that above-inflation budget increases (so real-terms budget increases) ought to have led to improving services, other things being equal. But other things aren’t equal - partly because people are getting older, but also partly because people are living unhealthier lives.
So just to stand still, the NHS would have needed even larger above-inflation spending hikes than it got; or, heaven forbid, government policy would have had to start treating mass obesity as the public health emergency that it is, rather than fretting about the Tory press calling this a ‘nanny state’…
Yeah which is why the NHS was better under labour, because it was constantly more than 4% above inflation.
A big part of the killer though is the second part. Yeah the overall budget was (barely) above inflation, but the wage cap was often below inflation. During the time Labour were in power the amount of nurses went up by around 80,000. Since the Tories took power over 200,000 have quit. We can only imagine how many fewer would have left if it weren’t for the 1% pay cap and Brexit.
It has been squeezed though.
Under labour the NHS consistently received funding around 4% above inflation, under the Tories it was barely clearing 1% most years Fig 1
There’s also the other side of it, the NHS was not exempt from the 1% pay cap.
Should always go up above inflation to retain and attract staff as well as morally to improve people’s standards of living (and economically to grow tax receipts and grow the economy)
The two things together it becomes clear how the crisis started. Now add to that Brexit and a large reduction of the labour pool, other countries attracting staff with generous packages.
Yes, my point was that above-inflation budget increases (so real-terms budget increases) ought to have led to improving services, other things being equal. But other things aren’t equal - partly because people are getting older, but also partly because people are living unhealthier lives.
So just to stand still, the NHS would have needed even larger above-inflation spending hikes than it got; or, heaven forbid, government policy would have had to start treating mass obesity as the public health emergency that it is, rather than fretting about the Tory press calling this a ‘nanny state’…
Yeah which is why the NHS was better under labour, because it was constantly more than 4% above inflation.
A big part of the killer though is the second part. Yeah the overall budget was (barely) above inflation, but the wage cap was often below inflation. During the time Labour were in power the amount of nurses went up by around 80,000. Since the Tories took power over 200,000 have quit. We can only imagine how many fewer would have left if it weren’t for the 1% pay cap and Brexit.